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YUCATAN. 



By xf. G. BRINTON.m.d 



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J. SABIN & SONS, No. 84 NASSAU STREET. 



1 8 70 

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THE 



Ancient Phonetic Alphabet 



OF 



YUCATAN. 



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OST readers are quite familiar with the fact that a well-developed 
method of picture writing, or "didactic painting," as it has been 
appropriately named, prevailed through Mexico and Central America 
for centuries before the conquest. But that, in the latter country, 
there was a true phonetic alphabet, is one of the more recent discov- 
eries of American archaeology, and certainly one of the most interest- 
ing, as it promises to restore to us the records of the most cultivated 
nation of ancient America for a number of centuries previous to the 
advent of the white man. 
It is well-known that the forests of Yucatan conceal the ruins of cities and palaces built 
of stones covered with inscribed characters. All travelers who had seen these characters 
were convinced that they were intended to perpetuate ideas, but the key seemed to be 
irrevocably lost. Fortunately, within the last few years (to be exact, in December, 1863), 
a diligent antiquarian, the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, unearthed in a library in Madrid 
— that of the Royal Academy of History — a copy of an unpublished description of Yucatan 
composed by Diego de Landa, the first bishop of the country. In this was contained the 
phonetic alphabet employed by the aboriginal Mayas, with a tolerably full, but an intolera- 
bly obscure, explanation of their mode of using it. As De Landa's words are so important, 
and also not a little difficult to comprehend, we cannot do better than transcribe them ex- 
actly as they appear in the copy of his work published at Paris, in 1864. 

He premises his remarks by saying that the natives used certain characters or letters 
with which they wrote in books their ancient histories and sciences, and by means of these 
letters, and figures, and certain signs in the figures, they could understand and teach from 
these manuscripts. The missionaries found very many of them, all of which, the good 
bishop informs us, proved on examination to contain more lies and superstitions, and were 
consequently burned, which pained the natives in the most marvelous manner (lo qual a 
maravilla sentian, y les dava pena). 
He then continues: — 

" De sus letras porne aqui un a, h, c, que no permite su pesadumbre mas, porque usan para todas las 
aspiraciones de las letras de un caracter, y despues, al puntar de las partes otro, y assi viene a hazer in infini- 
tum } como se podra ver en el siguiente exeroplo. hi quiere dezir laco y cacar con el j para escrivirle con 



4 ANCIENT PHONETIC ALPHABET 

sus caracteres, haviendolos nosotros hecho entender que son dos letras, lo escrivian ellos con tres, poniendo ^ 
a la aspiracion de la / la vocal {>, qu« antes de si trae, y en esto no hierran, aunque usense, si quisieron ellos 
de su curiosidad. Exemplo: — 



Despues al cabo le pegan la parte junta. Ha que quiere dezir agua, porque la hachi tiene a, h } antes de 
si la ponen ellcs al principio eon a, y al cabo desta manera : — 




Tambien lo escriben a partes, pero de la una y otra manera, yo no pusiera aqui ni tretara dello sino por dar 
cuenta entera de las cosas desta gente. Ma in katt quiere decir no quiero, ellos lo escriben a partes desta 
manera : — 



.JLo 



This is all on the subject the bishop vouchsafes us. Let us now attempt a free translation 
of his words, premising that they are so obscure in parts, and the composition so careless 
and provincial, that we shall not take it at all amiss if any reader thinks he can improve 
our rendering : 

"Of their letters, I shall place here an A, B, C, their clumsiness not allowing more; 
for they employ one character for all the aspirations of the letters, and another to denote 
their repetitions, and so they go on in infinitum, as one may see in the following example : 
Le means a lasso and to hunt with one. In order to write with their characters, although 
we told them it contains but two letters, they make use of three, giving to the aspiration 
of the / the vowel e, which is before it, and in this they are not in error, if they wish to 
write it in their curious manner. Example : 

e 1 e le" 

Afterwards they put at the end the part which is joined. Again in ha, which means water, 
because the letter h contains the sounds a, h, they place the a both at the beginning and 
at the end, in this manner: — 

aha 

They can write it either with separate letters or united together. I would not have in- 
serted nor have mentioned this but that I wished to give a complete description of this 
people. Ma in katl means / do not wish ; they write it in separate letters in this way : — 

ma i n ka ti ." 

From these valuable though too scanty hints we learn that the letters were employed 
connected together in a manner somewhat analogous to, though more intimately than our 
cursive shrift, and also separately, as in the Roman alphabet. When the latter was the 
case, they were repeated apparently in their connected form. Further, the vowel sound 
which is necessarily associated with the enunciation of every consonant {la aspiracion), 
and which in the Maya language of Yucatan is so pronounced as to have been called by the 
Abbe de Bourbourg, " une certaine affectation gutturale," was taken account of, and ex- 
pressed in writing. Then there were a number of arbitrary signs, figures, and symbols, 



OF YUCATAN. 



with syllabic values, as we see in the last example given. These peculiarities, of course, 
make the system clumsy, but are by no means insurmountable difficulties in the way of elu- 
cidating it. 

Immediately at the close of the foregoing extract Bishop Landa gives the alphabet sub- 
joined, which has been carefully copied on wood, by Mr. Edward Bensell, of Philadelphia, 
the arrangement of the letters being slightly altered : — 



12 



13 




2 3 



24 






IS 



16 



17 



l 9 






26 



27 



2 9 





3° 



Besides these elementary sounds, he gives twenty arbitrary signs, one for each day of 
the Maya month, which signs seem also to be used at their syllabic value in writing words. 
All of them have the same peculiar rounded or circular form which is observable in most 
of the letters, and which has induced some writers to call this the "Calculiform " alphabet. 

But returning to the A, B, C, let us inquire the meanings of the figures adopted. 
Knowing these, we shall be in better position to recognise their variations on existing in- 
scriptions and manuscripts — for these, as we expect, are considerable; but not more so, 
perhaps, than the variations in the forms of the Roman letters. 

a. Nos. 1, 2, and 4, are representations of the heads of some animals, No. 2 being 
evidently the head of a bird with a long curved beak, probably a species of parrot. No. 
3 has been supposed to represent a leg or a boot of some kind, but is probably also a rude 
figure of a head. (See Plate XXXVI. of the manuscrit Troano.) 



6 ANCIENT PHONETIC ALPHABET 

b. Both these letters are supposed to represent a path or way bearing the marks of foot 
prints, indicated by the small figures inside the circle. 

c. This letter should probably be pronounced ka (a as in mate), and is imagined to 
represent a mouth displaying sharp teeth. 

ca. This sign is explained as the jaw of an animal thickly set with teeth ; but a careful 
examination of its variations leads to the belief that it is a representation of the eye lashes. 
(See the Etudes sur le Manuscrit Troano, p. 55.) 

cu. This has not been identified. 

t. As there is no d in Maya this character stands for both t and d. It signifies space, 
the four marks leading towards the center representing the four cardinal points, and the 
phonetic base being the Maya, preposition ti, in, toward, at, in space. 

e. Probably a front view of the human face, surmounted by the hair, the dots marking 
the eyes, nose and mouth. 

k. Nos. 12 and 13, variations of the same, represent a joint of bamboo. No. 14 is the 
guttural h, pronounced ka, which word in Maya means water. The figure represents a 
stream flowing around some objects. 

i. This letter seems formed after the analogy of c, but no satisfactory analysis has yet 
been offered. 

k, ku. The k is beyond doubt derived from a head seen in profile. The upper figure 
within the circle is the closed eye with its lashes (compare No. 8) ; that below on the 
right is the ear (compare No. 28); that on the left the mouth. (See the variations in the 
Etudes sur le Manuscrit Troano, p. 55.) The ku is supposed to be a drawing of the 
sacred "medicine bag." 

/. Neither of these has been resolved. 

m. This also, is the figure of a head. It is distinguished from the k by the eve being 
open, from the p by the absence of dots around the mouth. 

n. Possibly the figure of a serpent. 

0. Variations of the same, of uncertain origin. 

p, pp. Again the face in profile. 

X. The first figure is easily recognised as the human hand, the second as a face in pro- 
file, emitting breath from the mouth. 

u. The first sign represents the ear, the second is of uncertain derivation. 

z. This seems to be a vase of some kind. 

It is evident that many of these signs have received abbreviated and conventional forms 
quite remote from their original figures, precisely as we know occurred in the Phenician 
and derived alphabets. The variations are numerous and puzzling. 

It will be observed that the basis of most of them is a head seen in front or in profile. 
Bearing this in mind, and fixing definitely the differential marks, which alone were deemed 
of importance by the native artists, we could venture with considerable confidence on the 
interpretation of manuscripts and inscriptions, did we not meet with very serious obstacles 
in other directions. 

One of these is the resolution of the groups referred to by Landa as las partes juntas. 
In these the rounded ?' Calculiform " letters are arranged in quadrilateral masses, each rep- 
resenting a phrase, name, or title. We may seek the origin of this arrangement in what 
philologists call the incorporative, or " polysynthetic " character of the Maya in common 
with all other American tongues, which tends to the expression of an idea with all its mod- 
ifications, in one intricate grammatical synthesis. These groups must first be separated in 
their component parts, and then arranged in proper order. Some of them read from right 
to left, and alternately from top to bottom and bottom to top ; or, to illustrate by a dia- 
gram, as if we were to write the word marvelous, thus : — 

o L M 

U E A 

S V R 

But the artist had no hesitation in changing this arrangement, if another would allow 
him to compose a neater group. Especially is this the case on the sculptures, where the 
love of ornamentations constantly obscures the design and renders the letters almost unre. 



OF YUCATAN. ? 

Cognisable, precisely as the fashion is at the present day to adorn the walls of our churche 
with inscriptions in ornamental and Gothic characters, hardly legible to unpracticed eyes. 

There is also an obstacle in the very limited number of manuscripts in this character 
which have been preserved. Of the vast number found among the natives at the conquest, 
only three or four are known to be in existence. One of these is the "Dresden Manu- 
script," another the " Manuscript Troano," the third the " Manuscrit Mexican, No. 2," 
of the Bibliotheque Imperiale; and perhaps the " Pesth Manuscript" is in the same shrift. 
Of these the Dresden Manuscript may be seen in the large collection of Lord Kings- 
borough on Mexican Antiquities, and the Manuscript Troano was published in fac simile 
by the French government under the editorship of M. Brasseur de Bourbourg. (Mission 
Scientifique au Mexique et aVAmerique Centrale, Linguistique. Paris, 1869. Impri- 
merie Imperiale.) There is, however, material almost inexhaustible in the inscriptions 
preserved upon the stone temples, altars, and pillars of Yucatan, which we may with great 
confidence look to see deciphered before many years. 

The only serious difficulty which is at present in the way is our want of knowledge of 
the ancient Maya language. All the published grammars and vocabularies are extremely 
deficient and incomplete, and quite inadequate to serve us in interpreting the inscrip- 
tions. But even this alarming obstacle is only temporary. There exists in manuscript a 
most complete and carefully composed dictionary of the Maya, written about 1650, two 
copies of which are in this country, one in the hands of the Smithsonian Institution, and 
which we earnestly hope will shortly be published under the efficient superintendence of 
Dr. Hermann Berendt, the most accomplished Maya scholar living. With it in hand, 
the deciphering of the inscriptions of Palenque, Uxmal, Itza, and the other ruined cities of 
Yucatan, and of the manuscripts already mentioned, will become certainly a less serious task 
than that of translating the cuneiform inscriptions of Ninevah. 

Even without other aids than the limited vocabularies already published, some antiqua- 
rians have boldly set to work on the Yucatecan writings. Most conspicuous of them is M. 
Brasseur de Bourbourg, who first published Diego de Landa's work containing the alphabet. 
(Relation des choses de Yucatan de Diego de Landa. Texte espagnol et traduction 
Jrancaise en regard, comprenant les signes du calendrier } et de I' Alphabet hieroglyphi- 
que de la langue Maya. Paris, 1864. 

His recent edition of the Manuscript Troano is prefaced by an Etude in which he at- 
tempts to interpret several of its pages. It is painful to be unable to say a single word in 
favor of his views. They are thoroughly untenable and groundless. The Abbe Brasseur 
deserves the highest praise for his ardor and devotion to archaeological studies, but his the- 
ories do not bear a moment's examination. They are so utterly wild that we are almost 
afraid to state them. He imagines that these inscriptions and manuscripts all contain geo- 
logical reminiscences, chiefly concerning the submersion of a portion of the American con- 
tinent and the consequent formation of the West India Islands. He explains all the let- 
ters as "expressive images of the cataclysm of which they are the phonetic expression." 
The culture of the Mayas and Aztecs he regards as the debris of a far higher civilization, 
which once extended over most of the American continent, and from which that of 
ancient Egypt (!) was derived. He insists on the identity of the ancient Maya and Aztec 
tongues, for which there is not a shadow of proof, and going further, claims that they are 
both derived from Germanic roots. Of course, with such notions as these, his "interpre- 
tation " of the Manuscript is an absurdity, and can never obtain a serious hearing in scien- 
tific circles. 

A very difFerent student is M. H. de Charencey, long favorably known for his re- 
searches into the Basque language, the dialects of Central America, and other critical publi- 
cations. In the first volume of the Actes la Societe Philologique (Paris, 1870) he has an 
" Essai de D'echiffrement d'un Fragment d 'Inscription Palenquienne" He takes for his 
subject the famous " bas-relief of the Cross," found on the back of the great altar at Pal- 
enque. It is portrayed in Stephens's Travels in Central America, and more carefully in 
the work of Cabrera on the ruins of Palenque, from a drawing by M. de Waldeck. It 
seems to represent the ceremony of baptism, or something analogous to it. The central 



& ANCIENT PHONETIC ALPHABET. 

figures arc surrounded by inscriptions. Immediately above the bird which surmounts the 
cross is found this character : — 




This he analyses as follows, commencing at the right: h (variation of No. 13 of the 
alphabet), o (variation of No. 22 enclosed in a circle), nab (the Maya word for the palm 
of the hand which supports the middle letter), ku (variation of No. \j),=honabku. This, 
in the orthography hunabku, a discrepancy of no great moment, is a familiar Maya name 
of divinity, and means the only, or the one God. The course of argument by which he 
supports this analysis is careful and judicious. 

The second group which M. de Charencey analyses is this : — 




This he resolves, commencing at the right hand upper figure, proceeding from aoove 
downward, and from right to left, into the following letters of Landa's alphabet : 

u, ku, ku, 1, ca, nab, 
meaning "it, or those, of the Kukulcan." Kukulcan, however was the name of the hero 
god of the Mayas, corresponding to the Ouetzalcoatl of the Aztecs. His worship was in- 
troduced into Yucatan subsequent to the ninth century of the Christian era, and his name 
means in Maya precisely what Quetzalcoatl does in Aztec, namely, " the serpent with 
quetzal feathers," the quetzal being a species of parrot with bright green plumage. This 
interpretation, therefore, if admitted, fixes an important date in Central American history; 
for it proves that the erection of the extraordinary monuments of Palenque, which were 
found in ruins at the conquest, took place subsequent to the ninth century of our era. 

It is not our object at present to go into the details of these remarkable investigations, 
still less to criticise them at length, but simply to give their outlines and results. They 
should excite an earnest interest in this country, and stimulate our scholars to turn their 
attention to the antiquities of our own continent, which thus acquire an importance quite 
equal to those on the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile, which have commanded such 
profound study from European scholars. 




